May 28: The Rays announced this morning that Rortvedt has indeed been designated for assignment. Thaiss has been added to the active roster and will presumably be with his new team for this afternoon’s series finale versus Minnesota.
May 27: The Rays intend to designate catcher Ben Rortvedt for assignment, reports Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times. That will clear an active roster spot for new backup catcher Matt Thaiss, who was acquired from the White Sox this afternoon. Topkin notes that Rortvedt was bidding emotional farewells to his teammates after tonight’s loss to Minnesota.
Rortvedt is out of options. The Rays cannot send him down without putting him on waivers. They’re not going to carry three catchers or move on from starter Danny Jansen, so the Thaiss pickup made a Rortvedt DFA more or less inevitable. The lefty-hitting Rortvedt went 0-3 with a strikeout tonight and is down to an .095/.186/.111 slash line through 70 plate appearances. His strikeout and walk numbers are solid enough, but he has only managed one extra-base hit while ranking near the bottom of the league in hard contact rate.
Tampa Bay acquired Rortvedt from the Yankees in a three-team deal on the eve of Opening Day 2024. He started a little more than half the team’s games last season, batting .228/.317/.303 across a career-high 328 plate appearances. The Rays signed Jansen to an $8.5MM free agent deal to supplant Rortvedt as the primary catcher. The drop in his already poor offense has now squeezed him off the roster. While Thaiss has very little power himself, he’s at least getting on base at a huge .382 clip over 35 games this year.
A former second-pick of the Twins, Rortvedt is a capable defensive catcher. He has graded as a slightly above-average framer and blocker in his career. He has solid arm strength and has thrown out six of 27 attempted base-stealers. Once the Rays officially announce the DFA, they’ll have five days to explore trade scenarios. They’d place him on waivers if they don’t find a trade partner. An acquiring team would need to plug him directly onto the MLB roster.
Bye Ben. The pitching staff seems to like him, but no bat is a problem.
He threw out Bobby Witt twice which not many catchers in the game today can say theyve done. If he can just get the bat going a little bit he can be a backup. Wishing him the best
His career numbers are pretty bad, so getting the bat going seems unlikely. He can play defense, call a decent game and he’s well-liked so he can take up the life of an itinerant backup catcher if he wants. But the days of Rick Dempsey type careers hanging around for years hitting .180 are long gone, and these days that means short contracts and living out of a suitcase.
Guys like Austin Hedges and Luke Maile keep finding work year after year so I’m unsure that teams aren’t still hungry for a high floor glove/no bat behind the dish. Teams need at least 60 passable catchers, and the supply of guys you’d want playing for your club most days is more like 15-20.
These guys still get jobs, but there’s a lot more churn of younger guys. In many organizations the frantic search for hitting has become more important than a proven steady hand guiding the staff.
Also, how bad is Austin Hedges? Only 32, already over 2000 PA and he’s established himself as a career 53 OPS+ hitter with a job. Maybe the respect should go to his agent, Scott Boras.
I think you might have a blindspot if you cannot see that the reason he keeps getting work is exactly due to the quality of his defense and teams don’t care if he can hit or not due to that high level of excellence. It refutes your point so maybe you just don’t want to see it.
.180 would be an improvement for R-vet. His current BA is .08ish
Sad. He was supposed to be our offensive catcher and just never got there. Really seemed to fit in with the team so this sucks to see. I can’t imagine Matt Thaiss is gonna be much of an improvement
Thaiss has gotten on base at a .321 pace for his career, and is doing even better this year (.382 OBP). Rort has gotten on base at a .186 clip this year, so yeah, there’s a pretty big improvement at the plate from Rort to Thaiss. Thaiss will probably be a step back in framing/catching though. There’s a reason he was available and didn’t cost anything. to acquire.
I doubt it given his historical below average performance behind the plate. Sure, he will walk more, but if he is giving up runs because of his poor framing, that won’t help the team.
Never thought of Rortvedt as an offensive force. He got off to an okay start offensively with the Rays, but it wasn’t going to last. He was noted for his pitch framing.
And his framing dropped off this year…
“The drop in his already poor offense has now squeezed off the roster…”
Thaiss is the immediate replacement, but the timing of this coincides with Dominic Keegan getting to AAA following an elbow issue. If he has put the injury behind him it might not be long before he is asked to contribute at the highest level. In the near term, Thaiss is an improvement over Rortvedt at the dish, though behind it might be another story.
fangraphs.com/players/dominic-keegan/sa3020194/gam…
i.ibb.co/WWsQbFFs/Screenshot-2025-05-28-at-8-07-19…
I wouldn’t expect to see Keegan in the Show this year. He’s still a work in progress behind the plate and just missed 1/3 of the season in development.
Not right away, but Thaiss is merely a placeholder who can be moved on from if/when Keegan has proven he deserves a chance. That wasn’t possible when he was still recovering from injury or in complex ball, but becomes more realistic the more he plays at AAA.
Rays have been cursed with receiving production from catchers.
Marlins have a worse catching curse than the rays, but the marlins might have just solved it assuming they don’t over Ramirez off catcher
It’s the curse of Buster Posey intimating he wouldn’t sign with TB so they nabbed Tim Beckham at 1.1. Despite Tim indirectly landing Junior Caminero to the club, it’s impossible to not wonder how the club’s future would have been different if they had a borderline Hall of Fame catcher instead of nothing during a run where the team was really good.
Ben Dover will be back and better than ever
You don’t know squat.
Could see Rortvedt in Baltimore. Need a backup C. Handley is decent defensively but can’t hit. Tromp won’t make the Orioles great again. Sanchez isn’t close to being ready from his injury and wasn’t hitting anyway. So I think he winds up in Baltimore
They would be among the first to make that call given the waiver process prioritizes the worst records in the same league and Baltimore has one of the worst records in the American League. The White Sox would seem to have little interest given their plethora of young catchers so we’ll know for certainty if he goes somewhere else that Baltimore was not interested.
@Jason – The waivers are no longer league based. Strictly based on team records now.
Thank you for the heads up. I was unaware. So since only the Rockies have a worse record Rort would have to pass both of them before Os get the choice. Still seems like we’ll find out if they have interest or not.
If he can get anything figured out and bring that bat up to like 80 OPS+ he could be Jeff Mathis.